By Jesse Cohen
Investing.com - The European Central Bank left policy unchanged as expected on Thursday but kept the door open to even more stimulus as the euro zone economy continues to suffer from the fallout of broader global turmoil.
“The Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present or lower levels until it has seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level sufficiently close to, but below, 2% within its projection horizon, and such convergence has been consistently reflected in underlying inflation dynamics,” the ECB said.
Thursday marks Mario Draghi’s last policy meeting as president of the ECB, with his eight-year term as head of the euro zone’s central bank officially coming to an end on October 31.
He will be replaced by former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde on November 1.
Draghi’s reign as ECB boss had its climax in June 2012, when he famously said the “ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough.”
His pledge saw yields on euro zone government debt, which had surged to historic highs at the time, fall sharply, effectively ending the region’s sovereign debt crisis in 2012.
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-- Reuters contributed to this report